Nicole Kidman  going where no beauty has gone before

‘Nicole goes out of her way to walk on the razor’s edge as an artist. I think she’d find it unnatural to be anything but exploratory, dangerous and challenging.”

That’s director Baz Luhrmann,speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about Nicole Kidman, the world’s most glamorous and daring character actress.

Nicole is on the cover of HR, looking for all the world like a fresh young thing who wouldn’t dream of taking off her makeup, ratting her hair, being a witch onscreen or crazy onscreen, or doing things to which other actors might say: “Uh, let’s talk, and then let’s not do it!”

I remember the first time I saw Kidman onscreen with soon-to-be-husband Tom Cruise, in “Days of Thunder.” Kidman, an Aussie, was an unknown quantity in the United States. I recall liking the movie — Tom was at his appealing peak — but reserving myself on Kidman. I made some comment along the lines of, “Maybe she can act if she can ever get that mass of hair out of her face.”

Well, I soon had to eat my words, because I then saw her in an earlier film, the thriller “Dead Calm.” She could act. And she acted even better in “Billy Bathgate” and (especially) “To Die For,” as the coldly aspiring TV reporter who’ll do anything to become famous. Her exclusion from an Oscar nomination for that was one of those eternal Academy mysteries.

Her career — and her marriage to Cruise — progressed. But she didn’t seem altogether comfortable as a traditional leading lady. She didn’t quite fire up as some of her best performances had hinted she might. Then came the shocking divorce from Cruise, and suddenly she was in high gear with “Moulin Rouge,” “The Others” and “The Hours.” (The latter finally won her an Oscar.)

Then, Kidman took increasingly ambitious, off-the-wall roles in movies not meant to be blockbusters. And when she did try a blockbuster (like “Australia” or “The “Invasion”) her heart didn’t seem to be in it. The box office was not besieged. Movies such as “Dogville,” “Margot at the Wedding” and “Birth” were indicative of where her real interests lay. (“Birth” confounded many, but I still think it will have its day being re-evaluated and appreciated.)

Kidman is now happily married to singer Keith Urban and is the mother of two small children. She declines to reveal much about her adopted children with Tom, who are devout Scientologists. Of her own status and Hollywood in general, she tells HR writer Merle Ginsberg: “I actually don’t even know what a movie star is now — what is a movie star? When the best female part of the year is Claire Danes in ‘Homeland,’ you know the game’s changed. Maybe in the 1950s there was a far more particular idea. But now that’s all blurry — everything’s more fluid.”